


Win, Lose, Or Draw

by trekkiepirate



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, Set during A Life In A Day, Welters Challenge 2018, Welters Challenge: Build Your Own Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 01:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekkiepirate/pseuds/trekkiepirate
Summary: Eliot and Quentin go on a side quest. Set directly after Rupert's goodbye during A Life In A Day.





	Win, Lose, Or Draw

Rupert had just passed out of sight when Eliot had a coughing fit so strong that he fell to his knees.

Quentin rubbed Eliot’s back while the older man was struggling to get breath into his lungs. “It’s okay,” Quentin whispered, empty platitudes. Fillorian medicine didn’t have a word for lung cancer, but Quentin was completely certain that’s what this was. It definitely was not okay.

But it would be.

Eliot finally wheezed his way back to equilibrium and he sat with his back to their little cottage. “Rup didn’t hear that, did he?”

“No, he’s long since gone,” Quentin said, feeling the spike of worry and loss in his heart when he thinks of their son heading for the Twin Harbors. The boy, god no he’s a young man now not a little boy anymore, intended to become a sailor, determined to find new ports to carry his mother’s fruit business to. Once he’d become a teenager, Rupert took it upon himself to take up her legacy and the boy had ambitions.

Nodding, Eliot reached out and Quentin gently helped his partner to his feet. “Shall we, then?”

Quentin frowned as he saw the specks of blood the littered the dirt where Eliot had been coughing. “You sure you don’t want to rest first? I can triple check that we have everything we’ll need and you can take a nap, maybe work on a new pattern for-“

“Quentin,” Eliot interrupted, never as serious as when he used Quentin’s full name. “Baby, we both know that me taking a nap is not going to help. Getting to Chatwin’s Torrent is what’s going to help.”

“It’s probably not called Chatwin’s Torrent,” Quentin said as he ducked into the cottage for a heavily-packed bag that he slung across his shoulders. “The Chatwins aren’t even here yet, so it probably has another name. Or doesn’t, maybe it’s still undiscovered.” He frowned. “Maybe it isn’t even a healing river yet, maybe-“

Eliot placed a hand over Quentin’s rambling mouth. “Maybe we better go and see for ourselves before you work yourself into a panic attack.”

Quentin nodded. “Right. You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Eliot brightened. “You’d think nearly thirty years together would have taught you that.”

Smiling, Quentin readjusted the straps of the backpack and cursed his advancing age when he felt the ache in his knees starting already. Clearly, being a few years shy of fifty sucked, even when you did it in the land of your childhood dreams.

Eliot coughed some more, spitting a distressingly bright red glob into the dirt. He straightened and looked at the devastation in his partner’s face. “I’ll be okay. I’ll make it to the torrent and get me some brand spanking new lungs.” He headed north, knowing Quentin would follow as he had since the first day they met.

“How did you think you’d get along before you knew Fillory and the torrent were real?”

“The sad answer or the glib one?”

Quentin shrugged, “I’ll take both; we’ve got plenty of travel ahead of us.”

Eliot sighed. “Sad answer is that I didn’t expect to. Live to the fullest, leave a pretty corpse, all of that.” He realized Quentin had stopped and Eliot gestured his husband forward. “C’mon, you know I don’t feel that way anymore. Being High King gave me purpose and our life here,” he pulled Quentin close when they were side by side again, “is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You, Arielle, no longer so little Ted Rupert Coldwaugh are the best things I’ve ever had in my life. Incredibly frustrating mosaic notwithstanding, of course.”

Accepting the answer, Quentin sighed and kissed Eliot before saying, “Okay, I’ll take the glib one now.”

“It’s kind of you to ask. I sacrifice a virgin schoolgirl every other fortnight by the light of a gibbous moon using a silver scalpel forged by Swiss albinos who are also virgins. Clears my little lungs right up.”

Quentin laughed at that, the sound echoing all around them as they passed the road that led to Whitespire. “Do you ever,” he jerked his head towards the castle, looming in the distance, “miss being High King?”

Eliot raised an eyebrow. “Do I miss lounging around in gorgeously tailored clothes while Margo and I make fun of Tick and the rest of the Merry Men? Yes. Do I miss having to deal with the politics and backwards thinking and knowing I was ruining poor Fen’s life?”

“You-” Quentin stopped himself this time. “It doesn’t matter right now. The quest doesn’t even matter right now.”

“Quentin Coldwaugh, you bite your heathen tongue,” Eliot smiled but it was ruined by the way he was trying to cover another coughing fit.

Quentin shook his head. “I’m serious, El. Right now, all that matters is getting you healed. Think of it as a side quest.”

Eliot raised an eyebrow. “I know the explanation is going to be very nerdy so I normally wouldn’t ask, but as you said, we’ve got the time. What is a side quest?”

“It’s when you take some time away from a main quest, say defeating a boss to clear a level, and you do something else, like go rescue some kid’s lost puppy.”

“Yep, very nerdy. I was-”

“Sure, you’re always right. Blah, blah, blah.” Rolling his eyes, Quentin took a canteen from his side and held it out to Eliot. “Drink, you menace.”

Eliot drank deeply and wiped his mouth. “Q, could we… just sit down for a second? You know your knees are going to be hurting soon.”

“Like they ever stop?” Quentin asked with forced cheerfulness as they found a clearing with some boulders they could sit on.

Quentin’s knees creaked ominously and Eliot’s back made an audible pop.

“This getting old thing sucks. Would not recommend,” Eliot sighed as he rubbed Quentin’s left kneecap. 

“Better than the alternative,” Quentin said, massaging Eliot’s shoulders and upper back. “Hence the side quest.”

Eliot nodded. “Hence the side quest. He leaned his chin onto Quentin’s head. “Hey. I love you. I just… in case there isn’t a magical healing waterfall at the end of this. Just… I love you, Rupert, our life. If I die while we’re on this quest, side or main, I need you to know that. If this works out and I suddenly become the fresh and beautiful youth I once was while you stay a creaky old man with a beard that is starting to edge into the unattractive side of lumberjack-“

“Hey,” Quentin said, half-hearted protest in his tone and tears shining in his eyes.

Eliot shushed him with a kiss on the forehead. “Hush now, let Daddy monologue.”

Quentin pressed a kiss to Eliot’s neck. “Fine, go ahead.”

“This has been the best thing that ever happened to me. Win, lose, or draw,” Eliot said. “I’ve lived a good life with you. I’ve watched our boy grow up into the young man he now is. If I don’t see the end of the key quest, if you have to go back alone, just know that I wouldn’t change this for the world.” He smiled. “Also know I will one hundred percent haunt your ass for the rest of time. If only to see Margo’s reaction when you stroll up, all silver fox style.”

Quentin tilted back so he could look Eliot in the eyes. “I… me too… I mean, I am absolutely in love with you. And the life we’ve had here, even with Arielle gone and Rupert off to god knows where- I just… I wouldn’t change this either. Win, lose, or draw.”

The men kissed, decades of love between this one and the first hesitant one they’d shared that night on the quilt.

“Just so you know, the torrent doesn’t turn back age. It’s healing not miraculous.”

Eliot slapped Quentin’s thigh. “Cheeky. Just for that, I’m going to be extra sure that we scandalize some dryads later.”

Quentin raised his eyebrows as they stood and started back on the path. “You sure you’re up for that?”

Eliot winked. “I’m sure that we have to get naked for the healing to work and I very much plan to take advantage of that fact. That and the fact that, for the first time in many years, our son will not be within earshot of all the screaming I plan to make you do.”

If Quentin’s steps were a little faster, despite the protests of his knees, Eliot had the good grace not to comment.

**Author's Note:**

> Eliot's bit about sacrificing virgins is taken directly from The Magicians by Lev Grossman.


End file.
